September 14–17 Tuesday – Sometime between these dates, Sam and John D. Kinney traveled to Lake Bigler (Tahoe), where they spent four days building a shack for a timber claim, then allowed their campfire to get away from them and were forced to flee from a wildland fire (not burning larger trees) [MTL 1: 126n3].
Antonucci writes of Lake Bigler at this time: In Mark Twain’s time, Lake Tahoe was a place of astounding beauty, pristine scenery, and rich untapped resources. Far from the uninhabited wilderness that Mark Twain portrayed in Roughing It, the South and East shores were teeming with travelers and freight wagons headed east to opportunity waiting in the burgeoning mining industry in the Nevada Territory. Strung along this road to opportunity were crowded way stations and ranches that served the massive movement of humanity, animals and goods. Camped in its scenic meadows and still pristine forest were Washoe families living out their final days of aboriginal innocence. The forests, meadows and marshes hosted a dense and diverse population of wildlife. Spawning fish filled its streams bank to bank and immense schools of fish swam in its depths. Nevertheless, Tahoe was on the brink of sweeping change. Mark Twain saw it in its final pristine form and wrote eloquently about its virtue without ever acknowledging it eventual fate at the hands of timber barons, water seekers, ranchers and landowners [77-78]. Note: Antonucci gives Sept. 14-19 as this first trip, though the MTP shows Sept. 14-17. Antonucci gives the distance at 11.7 miles; and that Twain and Kinney walked it, taking a wagon road to the northeast shore of the Lake [96]. See Antonucci for details on each of the four days. Map courtesy of Antonucci.